January 21, 2026 - The Commodores - Sail On (Live in Las Vegas) (1980)

When I was a kid, the Commodores were popular and Lionel Richie was about to become a superstar. I wasn't a fan of theirs but I recognized that they had some very catchy tunes. They were too sappy for me, more like mom music - "Three Times A Lady", "Still." I mean, no way was I going to sing along with this mushy stuff. Lionel also wrote the Kenny Rogers hit "Lady." Geez, just thinking back to riding in the car with my mom and having to listen to "She Believes In Me" makes me cringe.

The one song I actually liked was "Sail On", a breakup song, one they don't write like anymore. The protagonist's take on the relationship:

I gave you my heart

And I tried to make you happy

And you gave me nothing in return

So he's cheerfully saying goodbye. And now

I want everyone to know

I'm looking for a good time

The studio version is a slick radio friendly yacht rock ballad, very smooooth. But here in this unbridled live version, the protagonist finds the good time almost immediately. When I first watched this video, I felt overwhelmed by the differences. Like, what is this song? Dang, all the whoos! and heavy drums, guitars, where did this come from? I knew they could rock, I mean, Brick House and Machine Gun are funky hard and all; maybe I should have been prepared for this. 

Lionel is impressively energetic and entertaining out front with his many vocal embellishments, but drummer Walter Orange is the power station. The rest of the guys, the sparkly suits, the musicianship, it looks like they all sing too... What a fantastic performance.

Lionel Richie published his autobiography this past year. My library carries it. Hello, is it me that book's looking for? Eh, got too many others to read first, Lionel.

January 20, 2026 - Luie Luie - El Touchy (1974)

 

"Hi! My name is Luie Luie, and I'm here to tell you about a new dance called the Touchy." So begins the fifty-three second monologue that introduces the Touchy, simply a way for people to touch, however they care to touch I guess. He made the recording by himself and played all the instruments. This is an example of outsider music, which includes artists like Jandek, Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, the Shaggs, and Tiny Tim.

The actual music is about two and a half minutes. It "must have a wild trumpet introduction." What a wonderful mess of a tune. Some wild horns, some wah guitar, moog, drums and percussion. The name of the album is Touchy, and eight of the ten tracks have either Touchy or Touch in the title.

Luie Luie, real name Luis Johnston, toured bars and nightclubs for decades, performing as a one-man band. He was based out of Southern California, and he made his living working as a painter, screenwriter, and nightclub entertainer. He appeared in or had something to do with the Elvis Presley film Change of Habit (which also starred Mary Tyler Moore). He released an album a few years ago called Trumpet of the Last Days. Good to know he's still out there touching people with his music.

 

January 18, 2026 - The Shadows - Apache (1960)

 

Quite possibly the Coolest video ever. The black and white, the smoke, the looks, the way the camera moves. And, I mean, show me a more quietly confident bunch of musicians outside the jazz world. Hank Marvin, well, he may not be the definition of cool here but just look at him, what a sweet smiling face! He is cool by default, being the lead guitarist and all. The bassist is Jet Harris, leather jacket cool that really ties the room together. He takes a puff on his cigarette, blows out the smoke, saves it for later. The drummer is Tony Meehan, and he's spellbound, all dreamy and far away. And the rhythm guitarist is Bruce Welch, fedora tough, fancying a pint or a fight.  

Apache is a pretty well-known instrumental. Covered also by The Ventures, Jørgen Ingmann, and of course the "hip hop national anthem" by The Incredible Bongo Band.

The Bears lost to the Rams today, and I'm a bit sad that their season is over. At least we'll always have Apache. 

Will the Bears win the Super Bowl next year? Only the Shadows knows.

January 17, 2026 - The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Don't Come Home Too Soon (2022)

What happens when your partner is so out of control or depressed that you are anxious about their arrival? You love them but they are so volatile. They think too much about things they couldn't get, their failures, their missed opportunities. This feeling ravages them; they put their fist through a door, they fall through a hole in the floor...you wonder if they should be locked up. But without them you feel like you can't breathe. It's life with someone you love. It's so sad. Because it used to be happy. You think.

I love the video. This representation of repressed domestic post-war times, when people just went through the motions and feelings were locked away to simmer, to boil until they exploded, and one was left to expire in conflicted oblivion.

The music is very much dream pop. Minor/major keys, reverb, twilight dust mote shadow sounds, kind of a sadder sounding Jonathan Richman. I think I heard this on Vintage Obscura Radio. 

January 16, 2026 - Ben Bogaardt - UFO (1971)

I just recently stumbled onto this one. I couldn't find the lyrics online, so I transcribed them:

An answer an answer

evening falls 

and a hard day’s work is done

everybody is home 

and no one’s alone

only the clouds

midnight has fallen

and the world disappears

the clouds swirl around

in shades of serenity

only the clouds

the clouds are fading away

the stars are shining through

and the moon is yellow and gold

the sky lights up

and the bright light comes closer

everybody is home 

and no one’s alone

only the clouds

6000 miles away

men are fighting

children are dying

and mothers are crying

and the light suspends in silence

the light changes its colors into bright greens and reds

and then it slowly fades away

it’s startling to know but in those UFOs

may lie the answer to man’s ability alone

an answer an answer an answer…

This is a sweet little poetic tune about alien observers. Only the clouds...everybody is home but they aren't alone. There are colors, stars, clouds that fade. The story feels fairly Muncie, Indiana, pastoral and calm until it gets to the fighting taking place 6000 miles away. I know...we all wish the aliens would finally decide that now is the right time to step in and be the answer, but I guess they just don't like us. 

There is no particular verse-chorus pattern, just a very simple and somewhat random arrangement of Em, G and D, with one C thrown in and an A in the an answer bits. Ben sings this with an innocent charm and wonder. He also has some Elvis vibrato in his voice; you can hear it especially at 1:13, the bright light comes closerrrr. 

The album is called Ben Bogaardt despite there being three other Bogaardts contributing, one of whom is also a vocalist. Their family story is interesting, here's a nice bit about them from the Canadian Music Museum.

Ben, is this the UFO you saw?

 

January 12, 2026 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Brandenburg Concerto 6 1. no tempo indication (1721-ish, performance from 2007)

Let's take stock here:

2 violas (the women in the middle)
2 violas da gamba (guy and gal to their right)
1 cello (guy across the way there by himself)
1 harpsichord (large red thing)
1 violone (guy behind the two women, just doing what he does)

This is my favorite movement of the Brandenburg Concertos. I love all the intertwining delicate notes, the way the violas dance around each other, sometimes connecting, other times off on their own adventures. It feels like they get to have all the fun while the rest of the instruments are just holding down the fort and sawing away. But not true. As the piece goes on, there are opportunities for the cello to step out a bit, like at 3:45 he seems to be enjoying himself. The viola players move around a lot, I wonder if they were allowed to do that in Bach's day. Were there even women viola players back then? And even if there were, would they have been allowed to be so physically demonstrative? Magic eight ball says "I seriously doubt it." I looked up other performances, and this one is my favorite, I like the tempo.

I also like the Brandenburg concerto with the wicked harpsichord jam at the end, can't think which one that is off the top of my head. Had to look it up: Concerto 5, 1st movement, Allegro, basically the last 3 and a half minutes is crazy solo harpsichord. Bach was just in the mood that day I suppose. Those other musicians have nothing to do but sit there and listen to this guy rock out like he's playing the keyboard solo in Won't Get Fooled Again. My mom would probably say, "Where are Karl Richter's parents? Letting him mess around on the harpsichord like that? Hmmph."

Bach, the man, the myth, the master of disaster:

Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt:

January 11, 2026 - Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band (live at Alpine Valley - July 17, 1989)

I wasn't sure I'd post something in memory of Bob Weir, but I found this video, which is from a show I attended. It's one of my favorite songs by the Dead, one of those comforting songs like Ripple or Box Of Rain.

January 9, 2026 - Halim El-Dabh - Wire Recorder Piece (1944)

This is one of the earliest works of tape music. This dude took a wire recorder from the office of a radio station in Cairo and went out into the streets to see what inspired him. He encountered a ceremony, called zaar, a type of public exorcism, and recorded the voices. He then returned to the station and started messing around with the recording, using reverb, echo chambers and voltage controllers. 

The result was this creepy, haunting two minute piece. I listen to it once in awhile, kind of amazed that this came out during World War II. It sounds both ancient and of its time. Old. Mysterious. Scary. Like the soundtrack for the people who opened King Tut's tomb.

I'm thankful it doesn't go on for twenty minutes; I would probably be hiding under my bed, willing it to go away.

January 5, 2026 - The Daktaris - Musicawi Silt (1998)

 

This is another one of the tunes I heard late at night while I was camping on the Oregon Coast at Fort Stevens during a few different Septembers from 2009 - 2011. I had also heard (the DJ emailed me the playlists):

Icarus - Spiderman

Icarus - Fantastic Four

Tame Impala - Expectations, which led me to eventually hearing Runway, Houses, City, Clouds

The London Souls - She's So Mad

Screaming Females - A New Kid/Zoo Of Death (from a Daytrotter session)

Queens Of The Stone Age - I Think I Lost My Headache

T. Rex - Mystic Lady

Lou Reed - I'm So Free

Dungen - Barnen Undar

Grizzly Bear - Colorado

...and many others, including one I'll eventually post on here.

The Daktaris were right up my alley. I loved Fela Kuti, and was probably listening to a lot of his music at the time I first heard Musicawa Silt. The big saxy sound, the funky rhythm, the beat the beat the beat!

They were actually a bunch of New York session musicians who recorded a one off album and fooled people into thinking they were some long lost Afrobeat group. The group references its own prank in the track title "Eltsuhg Ibal Lasiti", which backwards, reads "It Is All A Big Hustle".

I haven't been able to find a photo that I actually trust to be the real Daktaris, so here's a photo of their one album:

January 4, 2026 - Norma Tanega - You're Dead (1966)

Like a few million other people, I first heard this song in the film "What We Do In The Shadows", a Vampire mockumentary. Hilarious movie. Such a great choice of music.

I didn't know much about Norma Tanega until now, so here is a little bit of what I've learned: 

She had a song called Walkin' My Cat Named Dog, which is also excellent. Her mom was Panamanian and her father was Filipino. She grew up in California. She lived to be 80 years old. She was also a painter. When she was a teenager she had her art displayed at the Long Beach Public Library. She also studied classical piano. She lived an adventurous life, backpacked through Europe, had a romantic relationship with Dusty Springfield (!), became more of an experimental musician later on. 

January 2, 2026 - Manfred Mann - 5-4-3-2-1 (1964)

I picture an out of control Schoolhouse Rock jam on numerical sequences. Cartoon Manfred Mann are all over the professor from Three is A Magic Number, sending him frantically running through the 2-5 animations, while other known characters run around in Robotron-like randomness, bumping into trees and animals and whatnot. Manfred Mann are causing utter chaos trying to locate the episode for number 1. But there is no episode for the number 1. Why wasn't there one for one? 

I think it's because Three Dog Night already had THE song about ONE. How do you top that? It's the loneliest number, how could Schoolhouse Rock possibly come up with anything else? 

5-4-3-2-1 is an enthusiastic little can of nuts. That harmonica and Vox Continental organ are in your face the whole way, anchored by a jaunty bass. The organ has a couple of cool little riff chips stuck in there nicely. The lyrics indicate that not only did the Manfreds mess up the Charge of the Light Brigade but were also the ones hiding in the Trojan Horse. So there's some added Schoolhouse Rock history/fable ingredients to spice up the story.

 

January 1, 2026 - Vangelis - La petite fille de la mer (1970/1973)

In English "The little girl of the sea", recorded in 1970 but released in 1973, this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music that one could ever be. I sat outside in the late afternoon a few years back, watching the sun sparkling on the ocean and this cosmic lullaby appeared and cradled me in a gentle bed of melancholy and reflection that stretched out into various thoughts and feelings over the span of six minutes. It was one of those highly personal trips, like where everything is aligned and you just enjoy it while it lasts. Vangelis was 26 or 27 and he was able to access the emotional spectrum of the universe at this age? I talked about his theme from Cosmos.  He really got out there. So trippy. Even that dang over the top Chariots of Fire piece makes me tilt my head. Future music dropping out in the 1924 Olympics. 

Happy new year to the planet. We are all one. Be ye circle, to quote Jon Anderson of Yes. He hung out with Vangelis, they did some albums.

Well, peace to you all. and fun and love and kindness and easy pleasant times and elephants and music. I plan to post many more groovy instrumentals and other sounds hereafter. thanks for reading and listening!

Groovy, man...like stars.